The Seal of Solomon (Alfred Kropp #2)(40)

“If I guessed your real name, would you tell me?”

“No.”

“Adam.”

“You are wasting your time.”

“Arnold.”

“Enough, Kropp.”

“Alexander. Axelrod. Benjamin. Brad. Bruce. What about the first letter—can you give me that?”

He didn’t say anything. I didn’t see what the big deal was about his name. Maybe he was somebody infamous or wanted for some terrible crime, like maybe what happened in Abkhazia had something to do with it, but OIPEP protected him.

“Okay, forget it. I was going to ask if you thought everything that’s happened has something to do with me not going to church since my mom died.”

He opened just his left eye and looked at me with it.

“You know, these world-threatening disasters I keep causing. You think maybe God’s mad at me?”

His left eye slowly closed. He said, “Isn’t it odd, Alfred, how often we attribute the terrible things that happen to us to God, and the wonderful things to our own efforts?”

I thought about it. I wasn’t sure, but I think he was accusing me of being egotistical. Me!

“Do you think I’m a bad person, Op Nine?” I asked.

“I think you are a fifteen-year-old person.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The angels were fully formed in an instant. We human beings take a bit longer.”

“That’s good. And bad too, I guess, from my point of view. One thing is for sure. This whole intrusion event is going to make believers out of a lot of people. I know your plate is kinda full right now, but maybe if you have a couple extra minutes you could say a prayer for my mom?”

“I am not a priest anymore, Kropp.”

“I know, but it couldn’t hurt.”

He didn’t say anything. His eyes were closed, so he might have been saying one or he might have just fallen asleep.

33

Soon I could see an airstrip, the runway a thick black scar in the pristine snow. We stopped at the edge of the tarmac and I hopped out without waiting for our silent driver to open my door. The force of the wind nearly knocked me over, and I wondered how we were going to take off.

Op Nine joined me and I pointed at our ride sitting at the end of the airstrip.

“What the heck is that?”

It didn’t resemble any plane I had ever seen. It looked kind of like a paper airplane, with sleek wings that started near the front and gradually widened as they went back toward the tail fin, which seemed small for a plane about the size of a 747. The fuselage came to a sharp point at the cockpit, as if a giant had taken a normal plane and stretched it, creating an elongated teardrop shape. It looked like a gardening trowel with wings.

“That is a specially modified version of the U.S. Air Force’s X-30 aircraft, the fastest plane on earth,” Op Nine said. “It skims along the very edge of the atmosphere at four thousand miles per hour.”

“Wow,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Which means we should reach our insertion point in under an hour.”

“Terrific. What’s our insertion point?”

I expected him to name some exotic locale, a place Mike Arnold visited on one of his missions for the Company, like Istanbul or Sri Lanka.

Instead, Op Nine said, “Chicago.”

I didn’t see a pilot or any crew onboard the X-30. We stepped into the main cabin, Op Nine closed and locked the door, and we took our seats. Everything looked brand-new, down to the plush carpeting and the first-class-sized leather seats. We buckled up and Op Nine pressed a button on his armrest. The plane immediately began to accelerate, and I felt my big body being flattened against the backrest. Then I found myself lying at a forty-five-degree angle as we roared upward, bouncing some when we hit the low clouds, but only for a second or two, and then the sun burst through the window beside Op Nine as we lifted over the clouds and kept climbing.

I turned my head slightly to get a better look, but the turning took a long time, because we must have been going close to Mach 2 and that makes turning your head a matter of willpower as much as strength.

The scene outside was breathtaking: the sun above the rim of the horizon, illuminating the solid cloud cover beneath it, painting the ridges gold, the bright unmarred blue of the sky. I thought of those kids playing soccer on that barren snowfield. Don’t forget, Kropp, I told myself. It’s beautiful. Don’t ever forget that.

The plane climbed until I could see the horizon begin to curve away from us, until I could see the actual curvature of the earth, and the sky darkened from bright blue to smoky violet to glimmering black.

Op Nine leaned over and raised his voice to be heard over the roar of the engines. “We have reached the edge of the atmosphere, Kropp! Approaching Mach 6!”

Normally, Op Nine was about as joyful as an undertaker, but now he was grinning like a kid on a theme park ride. We leveled off and the noise settled some, which is more than I could say for my stomach.

“What is it, Kropp?” Op Nine asked. Maybe he noticed that my face was the color of the snow about a mile below us.

“I’m not sure this was such a great idea,” I said. “The last time I got on a plane I deboarded the hard way.”

He reached under his seat and pulled out that same oversized leather-bound book I saw on the flight into the Sahara.